Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “Oh, it had started to happen, the reality of what I was doing was taking me over. It was like something was pushing me against my will. And like I say, what I had decided to do and my reason for doing it had become real. It was coming down on top of me like a mountain. And as I followed the boys into the house I didn’t even know what the next step would be. I was fighting to keep from crying and my mind was going like a house on fire, but it wasn’t until we were all in the house and passing through the dining room that I knew the next step. That’s when I happened to see that big potbellied stove which I used to have and was reminded of something I heard my grandmother tell about when I was only a little girl, and I thought, No, please, not that. But now it was like that stove had come alive and was hypnotizing me … that it was talking to me. And that’s when I knew the next step I was going to take … when I knew what I was going to do, and had to do. I was going to punish him the way my grandmother said they punished slaves—I was going to smoke him….”

  Suddenly Hickman found himself on his feet, shouting, “You WHAT?”

  “Yes, I know, A.Z., it’s terrible. Terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE, like I told you. So sit down and listen and try to understand, because now that I’ve started I’ll have to tell it all….”

  “But you can’t mean that,” Hickman said, dropping back into his chair. “Not you …”

  “Oh, but I did,” Janey said, “and I can’t undo it. I ordered the child to fetch me the big canvas laundry bag in which I kept my quilting material, and while he was fetching it I had Buster bring me a gunnysack and some old rags and excelsior from the chicken house. And when he came back I had him rake some live coals out of the stove into a big shuttle we used to have. Cliofus was just sitting there looking on because he was too clumsy to do anything, but from the way he looked at me he must have sensed what was coming. So when they’d brought the bag and the gunnysack and stuff I got busy making a real smoky fire. The boys didn’t know what was happening but they knew it wasn’t the kind of fire I’d taught them to make, so they were both puzzled and fascinated. I know it was terrible for them because it was killing me.

  “And all the time the child was crying and pleading and saying over and over again that he didn’t mean any harm, and me saying, ‘Yes, you did! I heard you, and you were all of your family and friends! So now to see that you’ll remember never to call anybody black in that tone of voice ever again you’re going to be smoked!’

  “‘But why, Miss Janey, why?’ he cries, and I say, ‘For your own sake, and because if you don’t learn it now while you’re young you’re liable to call somebody black in the wrong tone of voice and in resenting how white-looking you are they’ll up and kill you!’ ”

  “… But you were simply threatening him, weren’t you? Surely you weren’t actually going through with it. I can’t believe that you’d actually smoke the child to prepare him for being white.”

  “But I did, A.Z., I couldn’t do it today, but I did. And may the Lord forgive me because it was probably the cruelest, most useless thing I’ve done in my entire life. I thought I was preparing him for his new life, but even as I was doing it I wished that none of it had ever started.

  “Because by then not only was the poor child crying and begging, but both Cliofus and Buster were joining in. And if you’ve ever heard someone who’s afflicted like Cliofus cry you have an idea of how terrible it was. And I mean for all of us. It was terrible, terrible! And when I made the child undress and get into a nightgown which a lady with a family of older girls had given me, it got even worse. The child hated that gown because it had been worn by a girl, but I made him put it on so that he’d know how it felt to be a shirttail slave with nothing else to wear….”

  “Dammit, Janey,” Hickman exploded, “you weren’t preparing that boy for a new life, you were castrating him, denying his manhood!”

  “No, and if you were to see him you’d know that didn’t happen. He might be strange but he’s a real man. Besides, I thought I was teaching him to be a real man—and a free man. So I made him dress like a slave so that once he was taken away he wouldn’t even think about coming back. Which would have ruined his life because where he was going would be so different. He would dress different, eat different, talk different, and have different attitudes. He’d feel different and act different, and soon he’d come to look on folks like us with a different eye. So I didn’t want the poor child holding on to something he’d left back here with us who would no longer have a place in his life.

  “No, since he was going to live in his father’s world then let him forget us and be done with it. It was a terrible thing I did, but I insist that I did it out of love and only because I knew of no other way of seeing to it that his last memory of us would be tied to something cruel and inhuman. I only hoped to set him free, Alonzo. That’s all I wanted, and while I knew that it would break his little heart for a while I thought he would get over it and forget that he was ever one of us and called a Negro … no, don’t stop me now; just listen:

  “So when he was in the gown I made him step into the center of that gunny-sack, and then I pulled it up over his head and tied it with a piece of rope—yes, I did it! I tied him in there. And then I called to Buster and Cliofus to come and place their hands on top of mine as I lifted him and held him over that smoldering fire. Yes, I made them a part of it. And I held him there until the room was so thick with smoke that it had all of us coughing and choking and crying so bad that we couldn’t stand it. Then I untied the sack and rushed him and the others outdoors to get some air.

  “By then the poor little thing was so blue in the face that I thought I’d have to call the doctor, but finally he was able to breathe normal again, and with that I got enough control of myself to take him inside and put him to bed. So there you have it, Alonzo. That’s what I did, and to the end of my days I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. Yes, and that’s why I can’t accept his returning.”

  “But Janey,” Hickman said, “how could you bring yourself to do that to anybody, much less a child? How could you punish him for something he had nothing to do with?”

  “A.Z.,” Janey said, “there’s a world of difference between what I knew and felt then and what I’ve learned these last few days. But at the time I was able to do it because I loved him and wanted to help him. I had learned the pain of regret long before it happened, so I knew what it meant to want something that could never be mine. You never get over such a loss, so I didn’t want that child to go through any of that. And I believed the lawyer when he said that the child would be going to a better life. And who was I to dispute him? The child was to be one of them, so since I didn’t want him holding on to us and spoil his chances I did it. I tied him up in that awful bag….”

  Was there ever a crime, Hickman thought, that somebody didn’t commit in the name of love? That wasn’t justified and defended in the name of love? Love of family, of religion, of country, of loved ones? Janey, poor Janey … she sacked that child in the name of …

  “… A.Z.,” Janey sobbed, “try to understand my situation. From the time Lava-trice died I tried to be a mother to her child, and I believe I was doing fairly well. But then all of a sudden, and out of nowhere, here comes a couple of strange white men treating me like I was the child’s mammy….”

  “What do you mean, his mammy?” Hickman said. “You were never a ‘mammy’ to any of those boys; you were their guardian, their mother….”

  [BLUR TWO]

  “LISTEN, A.Z., I KNOW what I’m talking about. Of course I wasn’t a mammy, but that’s how they treated me. It wasn’t exactly the way they do it down home but it amounted to the same thing. They lived up North but like most Southern white folks it didn’t matter to them that a black woman could be as loving to a white child as she was to one of her own. As far as they were concerned she was nothing more than a convenience—that’s all she was!—and as long as the child was small and helpless they used her to raise it. She taught it to walk and to ta
lk, taught it good manners and to respect older people, things like that. But when the child reached the right age they took over. And with that they started teaching it that she was inferior. And although she’d been caring for the child since it was born and loved it they didn’t give a damn about hurting her feelings. The child was white and she was black, so they taught it to treat her like they did. Which was like a slave who earned wages.

  “And what’s more, all the other white folks, from teachers to preachers to cops on the beat, saw to it that the child would treat her the same way they did. So no matter how much the child might have loved the poor woman they went about doing everything they could to make it deny her.

  “And it works, because not only does the child turn against her, it turns against everybody like her, against all of us! And it begins having its full effect as soon as the time is ripe. Which is just about the time when young folks start smelling themselves and don’t know what’s happening to their bodies. Then they get confused in their minds and the poison takes them over….”

  Suddenly Janey sat back in her chair, whispering, “Oh, my Lord …”

  “What is it?” Hickman asked.

  “Now that I’m talking about it I just realized where I made my mistake….”

  “What are you getting at? Which mistake?”

  “The mistake I made in overlooking the fact that in order for their nasty business to work the child had to deny me! That’s the pattern: First they have to reach the age when the sap starts rising, and then the grown folks encourage them to begin acting like white folks instead of people. Because that’s when this grown white folks’ devilment takes over and the children begin turning their backs on their black mothers….”

  “No, Janey, not always, because I know some who were loyal to the end….”

  “All right, not always—maybe—but that’s exactly how it usually happens, and that’s where the boy was different. He was too young and had no white folks close enough to corrupt him. So the child never denied me; what happened was because of his daddy and that lawyer. They were the ones who raided my house and treated me like a mammy. And it was because of them that I was forced to deny my motherly love in the name of one that was deeper. It almost killed me, but when that lawyer showed up I had to do something. So to make it easier for the child to leave us and become his father’s son I decided to wean him….”

  Suddenly grasping his thighs, Hickman leaned forward shouting, “Wean him! … Are you telling me that by smoking that child you were preparing him to become white? That with a single stroke of slavery-time cruelty you were initiating him into an attitude for which he had no white folks to teach him? Was that your way of making him accept a condition which most folks in this country consider as being the best in the world? Teaching him to hate you and our people so he could accept living as white? How on earth could you even think such a thing?”

  “But Alonzo,” Janey sobbed, “you have to understand that I wasn’t thinking, I was acting!”

  “Acting! But why didn’t you just make him wash his mouth with soap, or give him a whipping? Confine him in the chicken house for a while? As I remember you were proud of raising white Leghorns about that time, so why didn’t you make him spend a night roosting with the chickens?”

  “Because none of that would have been drastic enough, A.Z. When you have a strong cord to cut you have to use a sharp knife. And think of the position I was in—all of a sudden that lawyer shows up and turns everything into the opposite of what I expected, both for me and the child. Like you say, I should have been happy for him; happy to see him enter into his fine new life and good fortune. But I wasn’t. Instead I reacted like a sinner who was questioning the wisdom of almighty God. So as you’ve accused me for years, I was arrogant. I admit it, but when the meaning of what that man and his lawyer were doing started getting to me I felt all of a sudden that no matter how little the child had here with us it was better than anything he was going to. Poor and humble, yes; but better because I loved him…. We, me and the boys, we loved him. So although I knew both in my heart and in my mixed-up mind that there was nothing I could do but give him up, I said NO!”

  “Yes,” Hickman said, “but you didn’t stop it from happening, and now it seems that you made matters worse. Maybe that explains your being so upset by his coming back—you couldn’t accept the idea that you’d done him wrong and he’d forgiven you. But now that you’ve finally seen it, let’s leave it at that and get on to what else happened—what was he like?”

  “I’m still confused,” Janey said, “I really don’t know. But for one thing, he wasn’t like anyone around here—white or colored….”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was so white, Alonzo; so ofay-acting.”

  “But you should have expected that….”

  “I know, but before they took him he talked and acted like us, while now he has their manners … and … and …”

  “And what?”

  “Well, A.Z., the only way I know to put it is to say that he acted crazy….”

  “Was that how Cliofus reacted?”

  “No, but Cliofus wasn’t here to hear our talk, he had gone to see his doctor.”

  “All right, so you say he sounded crazy. But what kind of crazy? Crazy insane, or crazy odd? Or was it something like when a white man tries to communicate with one of us and gets his words scrambled and his signals crossed?”

  “Something like that. It was like we lived in two different worlds and spoke different languages. Maybe instead of ‘crazy’ I mean ‘emotional,’ but he sounded like one of these spoiled white kids. And like some who’re much younger than him; the rich ones who have everything and don’t know what to do with it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that he acted mad. I mean like he was angry mad. Not loud and noisy mad, but like a person who’s been hurt and cried over it and then stopped crying and got quietly mad at the world….”

  “So what did he say?”

  “Alonzo, it was something that nobody who’d had the right upbringing would ever even think of saying. And more than his coming back it was that which upset me. After asking me to tell him who his father was and I couldn’t he said, ‘If I ever find the son of a bitch who gave me this color I’ll kill him!’

  “… kill him? He actually said that?”

  “Yes! Those were his very words, and I don’t have to tell you what it did to me. I was knocked off my feet because it was the last thing I expected to hear him say about his own father. And all the more because for all those years I had thought he’d been living with his father. But I tell you, the way he said it made my blood run cold. He sounded like he really meant it, and now you know why I wrote you. Anyway, I tried to tell him that he ought not to say things like that, but he was so worked up that after asking me what right I had to be telling him such a thing he rushed out of here like I’d slapped his face….”

  “Are you sure that he wasn’t just blowing off steam, saying it out of frustration?”

  “As sure as I’m sitting here. He had a look in his eyes like he meant what he said.”

  Shaking his head, Hickman was silent as he listened to the barking of a dog somewhere in the street.

  “Alonzo, what are you thinking?” Janey said.

  “I’m thinking that he might have come back with more than one purpose in mind. And if he did—well, this thing is more serious than I expected….”

  “But of course it’s serious, A.Z., why else did you think I wore out my fingers writing you that letter? I couldn’t give one hoot in hell over what happens to that scoundrel of a father, whatever he calls himself, but I don’t want that boy to get into trouble. No, sir! I have enough on my conscience as it is. Therefore I was hoping that you’d know how to get in touch with that man and warn him. You do know how to reach him, don’t you?”

  For a moment Hickman was silent, asking himself, Do I? After all our attempts to keep tabs on him, do I really?

  “You do, don’t you? B
ecause I truly hope so….”

  “I’m not so sure, but I think I might.”

  “Why ‘might’?”

  “Because to tell you the truth, he’s kept out of my sight as carefully as he seems to have avoided his son. Did the boy say where he’d been living after all this time?”

  “No, we didn’t get into that. I guess he was too mad. But after thinking about it I figured that what they did was to take him from me and put him in the hands of somebody else, some white person up North. He sure dresses well and doesn’t appear to be having any money problems. In fact, he looked wealthy. And I mean white-folks wealthy.”

  “It’s possible, because the father has money—but why would the man refuse to make himself known, uproot the boy from the only life he knew and then keep behind the scene and out of the picture? Why play hide-and-seek with his child?”

  “But A.Z., wasn’t that what he did to you?”

  “Yes, I suppose he did. But as you remember in those days life in this country was much harder for us than it is today. And besides all that he was rebelling against me. I suppose after working the revival circuits with me and seeing how unfair life could be for folks like us he decided that things would be better on the other side of the line. So after a while I came to accept that as his reason for crossing over. And whether he was right or wrong we have to consider that he had a choice that’s denied folks who look like us. And so, having the credentials for crossing over, he used them.”

  “Yes, and betrayed you.”

  “Call it what you will, it happened and I suffered. But what I can’t understand is why he would uproot the boy, his own child, and place him among strangers, and then abandon him. If what the boy told you is true, he didn’t even give him a concrete cause for rebellion—or at least not a healthy one. Did the boy leave town?”